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NASA Names Headquarters After ‘Hidden Figure’ Mary W. Jackson

hank
edited June 2020 in Off-Topic
“ NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Wednesday the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., will be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA. Jackson started her NASA career in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Jackson, a mathematician and aerospace engineer, went on to lead programs influencing the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. In 2019, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.“

Story from NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-headquarters-after-hidden-figure-mary-w-jackson


imageMary Jackson (first row, far right) seen here in an undated photo from the US space agency (AFP Photo/NASA LANGLEY)

(Photo & Caption from Yahoo News)

Comments

  • MarkMark
    "Hidden Figures" - just a great, great movie.
  • rforno

    Great movie and great move by NASA -- especially in the current climate.
    Mark said:

    "Hidden Figures" - just a great, great movie.

  • CrashCrash
    I must take the time, tomorrow.
  • Sven
    Thanks, Mark. We will watch the movie again over the weekend.
  • MarkMark
    @rforno - YES! Great move indeed. I hope they find a way to formally recognize all the other important women and accomplishments from that group.
  • hank
    edited June 2020
    We listened to a lot of l that early stuff on radio in my HS English class when I was 15 or 16. First, Al Shepard. Next, Gus Grissom. Third, John Glenn. Al and Gus did sub-orbitals (up & down). Glenn was the first American to actually orbit (3 times). Grissom’s flight was in early summer. He nearly drowned after he blew the hatch too soon and the capsule filled with water. They recovered him. Seems to me the chopper had to cut the capsule loose as its engines overheated trying to lift the water filled capsule. Plagued by bad luck that guy.

    What I really started out to say ... these guys were little more than trained chimps at that time. Strapped inside a cramped aluminum can at the mercy of new and unpredictable rockets and counting on the intelligence and math skills of people like Mary Jackson to bring them home safely. Of course, they were all qualified test pilots. But not much they could do once the candle was lit. Geez - the first electronic calculators weren’t even available to consumers for another 5-10 years after these flights.

    Totally off topic. But I talked with a fella last summer who was in the field of aeronautics and taught alongside Neil Armstrong at the University of Cincinnati after Armstrong’s historic moon landing. Knew him well. Says Armstrong and Aldrin were convinced they’d used too much fuel landing and wouldn’t get back to earth all the while they were on the moon. Still carried on normally. You probably won’t hear that anywhere else.

    Thanks @Mark. I’ve got that movie marked for viewing.
  • dstone42
    I also remember class coming to a halt and somebody pulled out a transistor radio so we could listen to lift-off. This was during my Fr/Soph years at Georgia Tech, where everybody was invested in the space program.
    David
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